At the age of 42, James Booker was a mess. An ex-heroin addict, he had done time at Angola State Prison, where he had assumed the persona of “Madame X,” for his inclination to dress in flamboyant clothes and wigs when he was not locked up. He now abused alcohol and cocaine, yet faithfully took the anti-alcohol drug Antabuse each morning. He got sick almost every night. He wore an eye patch upon which he had sewn a star, the souvenir of an altercation he sometimes blamed on none other than Ringo (Starr).

James Booker was also one of the great pianists of the twentieth century. He was a child prodigy whose early mastery of repertoire such as Chopin’s piano études meshed with the gospel roots of his middle-class African-American upbringing in New Orleans. He counted among his fans a young Harry Connick, Jr., to whom he patiently gave lessons. At his best, he could tear sheets of sound from the piano that would leave his listeners breathless. His left hand alone was pure wizardry, playing simultaneous bass and chord accompaniment that would leave any other two-fisted player stymied.
I could not have known all the threads of James Booker’s turbulent life when I set out, in 1982, to record the second studio album to be released under his own name. I was beguiled as much by the city as the musician—the deep layers of culture, the decaying beauty of the old buildings and the pervasive attitude that what might happen tomorrow wasn’t worth much thought today. New Orleans was easy to romanticize, and I believed that James Booker was one of the city’s great and nobly eccentric characters.

When I first met Booker, as everyone called him, he was playing in the window of the combined saloon and “washateria” (or coin laundry) called the Maple Leaf Bar, now a New Orleans institution. I said something innocuous like, “I’ve never heard anyone play the piano quite like you,” to which he replied, “Well, I know I can play the pee-AN-a.” As I would learn, this was probably the one thing about himself in which he had much confidence.

Rehearsals went well, and he began performing at the Maple Leaf each Wednesday night with the rhythm section we would use on the record (saxophonist Alvin “Red” Tyler, bassist James Singleton and drummer Johnny Vidacovich).

Then, about a month before the recording sessions, he landed in Baptist Hospital. When I spoke to him by phone, he said he wanted to go forward with our project. Yet, he also told me that what he wanted most was a lukewarm bath. A further problem emerged when, upon discharge only two days before the sessions, we discovered that the hospital had lost his upper dental plate. It was only when his manager remembered that Booker had a spare—the dentist had put a gold star on the wrong tooth on his first attempt—that we knew that Booker would be able to sing.

We arrived at Ultrasonic Studio, a converted storefront on the edge of Gert Town, with its streets of broken down and peeling shotgun houses. After several months of preparation, we were ready to go, but when I asked Booker which tune he’d like to start with, he looked at me blankly with his one good eye. For the next four hours, he led the musicians on a manic cat and mouse chase, jumping from one song to the next and never finishing anything.

“Booker, take a breath and relax, man,” I said. “You know we’re gonna get there. Let’s just take one step at a time.”
My meek and respectful coaching was not getting us anywhere. Was he afraid, or were his demons simply enjoying the attention they were getting?
The second day was worse. Booker had decided to abandon the material he had rehearsed, and that songwriters should be quickly enlisted.

“Call Allen Toussaint. Get Earl King and Cyril Neville to come down here.”

Allen sent over a song, and King and Neville showed up as requested. The problem was, Booker wouldn’t talk to them. In fact, he wouldn’t talk to anyone.

“Hey, Booker. Check out Earl’s new song,” I said.

King played his song, but Booker’s response was to turn away and withdraw to a corner, where he sat down and stared at the wall. Red and I walked over to him and lifted him up. I lost my patience.

“Look, motherfucker,” I said, as gently and quietly as I could manage, “Either you’re gonna play the piano and we’re gonna make a record, or I’m gonna cancel the session and you won’t get paid.”
He looked up forlornly and managed a weak smile. We got one song on tape that day.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. What was going to happen if I spent eight thousand dollars of Rounder’s money and came back with no record?
I headed to the studio early on our third and last day, intending to listen to everything we had recorded. Maybe there was something salvageable, hidden in the chaos.

When I arrived, Booker was waiting at the door, fidgeting in the bright early sunlight.

“Scott, can I play NOW?” he asked.

I sat behind him at the piano—his request—while the engineer rolled tape. Booker reeled off one quirky song after another. When the other musicians showed up, he managed four or five songs with the band before again retreating into himself. I paid him and he left with a flourish, heading for the bank.

Red said to me, “Man, it’s like trying to capture the wind.”

We had our record, though, and Booker was proud of it. In the months following the sessions, he tried to walk a straight path, even taking a job as a part-time typist (he was fast and accurate) at City Hall, wearing dark glasses, a suit and a tie, but it didn’t work. He died of a drug overdose only three months after the album was released. The sadness of his struggle, of which I had seen only the final chapter, has become synonymous for me with the ephemeral beauty of New Orleans, where tragedy and genius made their pact with Booker’s fleeting light.